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Wandering around the Lyceum with an entourage, Aristotle would hold forth on his conception of the universe: one in which God is the Unmoved Mover, while all else shuttles between the potential and the actual. Part of what we know about Aristotle’s thought comes via notes from those lectures. (You picture a student scribbling furiously as the philosopher pauses to dislodge a stone from his sandal.)

It’s often said that one of the great failings of American higher education is that teaching fails to get the respect it deserves. It seems to me, however, that, especially in the humanities, the current academic generation is significantly more dedicated to teaching than most of us were when I started out in this profession in the early sixties. The real problem, as I see it, is that the way we think about teaching needs to change.

The honorable political pledge to "make college affordable" becomes a wolf in sheep’s clothing during a recession. And the wolf is at the door. This recession already promises dramatic cuts in state subsides for public colleges and will result in widely condemned tuition increases. Mandates to hold down rising tuitions will surely follow, wrapped in the mantle of greater college affordability and access, but ultimately resulting in less of both.